Zach & Miri Make a Porno (Review)

Kevin Smith loves three things – profanity, schmaltzy love stories and a naked Jason Mews. It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that all three are on… er… display in his latest film Zach & Miri Make a Porno. (Using the actual title of the film thank you very much.)

The film gets off to a bit of a shaky start as Smith’s first act is just littered with unclever and over abundant uses of various expletives. Smith has a tendency to layer it on thick when he can’t find any pop culture references to riff on for 6 pages and this happens quite often here. The dialogue isn’t sharp but just as you start to get annoyed the leads arrive at their high school reunion and we meet Justin Long (playing a character named Brandon) doing his best Harvey Fierstein impression as a gay porn actor and beau of superman himself, Brandon Routh (playing a character named Long). And for the next hour or so this is a pretty good film. Smith keeps the plot on a steady pace, the jokes funny and the characters that matter developing. The addition of an Apatow alum cast (Long, Elizabeth Banks, Seth Rogen, Gerry Bednob, Craig Robinson) helps with the natural chemistry and the two porn actresses in the cast (Traci Lords & Katie Morgan) pull off their roles adequately. Then something strange happens – Smith goes meta. Or at least tries to. When the inevitable second act bottom-out happens the film jumps 3 months and Craig Robinson’s producer shows up to find Rogen so he can tell him that “the film has no ending.” Charlie Kaufman can pull this type of thing off without seeming hackneyed… Smith cannot, so for 3-4 scenes the film just falls flat on its face but once again the ultimate resolution is saved by the strong bond between the characters and the chemistry between the actors as Banks and Rogen get all sappy and live happily ever after – under cut of course by cursing and a naked Jason Mews… I don’t mean Mews was improperly sniped… I mean he may have been I just tried not to look… I mean I’m sure the doctors did a fine job on him as a baby… I should just stop talking.

B/B-

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Review)

Congratulations Guillermo del Toro, you are the most frustrating filmmaker working today. I used to be able to write you off as an overrated and untalented filmmaker – no more. Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a technical marvel. This film is beautiful in a way that surpasses everything that del Toro had done to date… combined… including Pan! Unfortunately, like every film he has made, the story is flat, the pacing is poor and many of the emotional moments just seem to hit the wrong note.

The film opens with a flashback of John Hurt (killed off in the previous installment) telling an adolescent Hellboy a bedtime story about a war between Men and the creatures of myth (Goblins, Trolls, Elves, ect). The visuals that accompany this story are not of the same motif as the rest of the film but instead they are rather like a CG version of a Quay Brothers film with wooden figures and mechanical gears propelling armies toward each other. The story then jumps ahead to present day and Jeffery Tambor’s Tom Manning upset that Hellboy doesn’t listen to him. He is the cause of so many of these wrong notes in the film’s first hour. Also Abe Sapien is back but the voice of David Hyde Pierce is not – this is not a good thing. So the story unfolds though too many coincidences and there are some action scenes including one in Diagon Alley!! There are some great references to John Landis and Jim Henson and some overly overt ones to Universal creatures (Frank specifically). There is a love story that never feels right and a bunch of relationships that are fairly unbelievable. On the other hand the action scenes are nearly perfect as is one scene in the middle of the film where Hellboy and Abe break into song! The ancillary creatures are stunningly rendered (as the fantasy world of Pan was) and final battle is a seamless blend of CG and live action that isn’t edited to death.

I wanted to like this film, I really did, but del Toro once again fails to connect as a storyteller. Throughout the film he either coaxes the wrong notes out of his actors or edits the wrong takes into the film. It must be all that time spent in his own imagination that gets in the way of him getting the human aspect of his films right. Guillermo del Toro is an utterly hopeless filmmaker who needs to be kicked out of the director’s chair and restricted to a creature house so that we can all enjoy his visual tour de force stylistics without sitting through his failed attempts to hang them on his lackluster scripts. Feel free to leapfrog George Lucas on the way.

C/C+

The Incredible Hulk (Review)

One can hardly blame Marvel for wanting to hit restart on the Hulk films. As one of their big 3 properties and second only in character mass appeal to Spidey, it must have been hard to stomach the fan reaction to the Ang Lee joint. I guess this one is for the fans but as a stand alone film it’s only just OK. During the opening credits you see (silently) the creation of this version of the Hulk. Interesting that despite the reset this is not an origin film and it is set 5 years after the events of the credits… which also happens to be 5 years after Eric Bana went GREEN. I’m still not sure what to make of that. But in the present day Ed Norton’s Hulk is hiding out in South America doing odd jobs, keeping a low profile and taking anger management courses. One small misstep sends William Hurt’s General Ross down Amazon way with hired gun and all around psycho Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) in tow. Norton of course escapes but only after long foot chase and a teaser of a hulk-out. Back in the good ol’ USofA Banner has returned home to find his girl Betty Ross – daughter of the general (Liv Tyler – daughter of the rocker). They catch up but an ambush is in the works and we finally get a full on fight… one in which a slightly enhanced Blonsky is left a shattered husk. But that slight enhancement kept him alive and he juices up for fight #3 where we switch coasts (Iron Man already trashed LA) to Harlem(!) where Banner and Ross go to meet a not all there scientist type overplayed by Tim Blake Nelson. He succeeds in quashing the genetic changes of one outburst but in doing so Banner is captured. As he’s flown away Blonsky who is now totally off his rocker forces the doc to give him the Hulk treatment turning him into the Abomination and setting up the next villain in the process. And then there’s the final Showdown at the Apollo!!!

While this film doesn’t quite touch the lows of the former film, it never comes near the highs either. Lee explored the psyche of the character while Norton’s version is worried about how a lusty romp might excite him too much. Lee’s brilliant comic book editing, stunning visuals (non CG) and iconic superhero moments are all absent from this film as are the great acting abilities of Bana and Connelly. The villains though are a step up with Hurt’s no nonsense General getting a slight edge and Roth’s seething but never hammy performance blowing Nolte away. The tone of this film is more “bland damsel in distress melodrama” with pithy jokes tossed in, ya know - a superhero movie. Its also chock full of full on geek-out moments that will have the fans cheering which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Unfortunately, Hulk drops a month after Marvel Studios brought us the revelatory RDJ as Iron Man and this one just can’t hold a candle to that. It’s not an abomination but it ain’t nothin’ to ink home about either. If Marvel can keep all their output somewhere between this and Iron Man though, I’ll be quite happy with the master plan.

Geek Note: no need to stay for the credits – they bumped the Tony Stark cameo to just before it fades to black.

C/C+